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Rane: Hello, my name is Rane Bowen and this is the Flow Artist podcast. Together with my co host Jo Stewart, we speak with extraordinary movers, thinkers and teachers about how they find their flow and much, much more. But before we dive in, we want to take a moment to acknowledge and honour the traditional owners of the unceded land where this episode was recorded. The Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. We pay our deepest respects to the elders, both past and present and acknowledge the emerging leaders within their community. In this episode we're speaking to Claire Holloway, the founder of the Centre for Bright Beginnings. You might remember our conversation with Claire from back in 2023. We continue to explore many of the themes we touched on in that episode, from the importance of making yoga practise accessible to activism and a commitment to social justice being an expression of living your yoga and the realities of life as an independent yoga teacher. Claire shares about a recent event. She co facilitated mothering during a genocide. And we also discuss Claire's new course, Yoga for Home Birth and some of the politics around the birth, medical trauma and body autonomy. Please be advised of these things as you listen to as we cover some sensitive and emotional topics. Although navigating these themes is really what this episode is all about, it's a great conversation and Claire has so much wisdom to share. We hope you enjoy listening. Claire, it's great to catch up with you again and I guess it's been a few months since we last chatted with you, so.

Jo: Over a year.

Rane: Over a year, Sorry. Oh my gosh, over a year. So maybe you'd like to give us a little update on what you've been up to since then then.

Claire: Yeah, certainly. No, it's really exciting to be in conversation again. Rane and Jo. And yes, I'm still here on Whadjak wuja. So Perth in Western Australia and it has been, I think it's actually almost been 18 months since.

Jo: Yeah, December 2023.

Claire: Yeah. And so my then two year old is now three and a half which I think like with the younger child you're kind of. That's, that's almost how I use my calendar now rather than the actual calendar as they're growing up. So apart from the mothering side of life, which is obviously a large part of what I do, I was, I was trying to rack my brains because last time we spoke I was really kind of starting to step back into a lot of things after being on whether maternity leave is the right word because when you run your own business it's not Quite the same. But, you know, getting back into more serious focus on my. The work side of my life. What's really happened for me has just been following, following the. The light or the crumbs or whatever word you want to use as to what was. I was more consistently drawing in and starting to really focus on that, which has been a lovely process and still ongoing. And so part of that for me has been quite a big shift towards a focus or I think I was already heading in that direction, but a focus on private classes, one on one classes in the perinatal space still. So really supporting people individually so through their pregnancy and postpartum and parenting journeys, through yoga primarily. And then also I think since last time we spoke, I've added my matrescence coaching qualification in there as well and that seems to be finding a really nice fit. Very much an adjunct in terms of they're both very much about holding space for people, but being able to bring in some of those more coaching tools as well has been really lovely. And along this same line of like what I've been attracting in, the other big thing that's become more and more for me has been working with people who are planning or preparing for a home birth. And I just started to notice that a lot of the people who are coming to me for prenatal yoga were thinking about or ended up being in that space of home birthing or free birthing. And I guess having been through that experience myself and building community around that here in Perth, I now run a monthly home birth community catch up at the studio as well. Just a free offering for people. So that's been a really beautiful community building kind of thing that's been organically happening and some other community kind of stuff that's been happening is I've been lucky to receive a grant from the local council, so I've been doing some group programmes that are heavily subsidised with a trip free crate, which has been something I've dreamed of for a long time, being able to offer because I feel like in the postpartum space there's a lot of great offerings around what's often termed mums and bubs or parents and bubs. But really then it's. It's tricky for the mother to focus on themselves or the parent to focus on themselves at that point with baby in the room. And so being able to offer a crash situation is just really giving them that little bit of extra space and moment as well. Not so much to shut out the child because the child is so important as well. But I feel like, you know, we give and focus so much on the child after birth and the mum or the parent who births often gets left to the wayside a little bit. So that's been feeling really good.

Jo: Before you move on, like, I'd actually love to kind of detour into that because I also teach classes with my local council and it's one of my favourite models for, for offering financially accessible yoga practise because you as a teacher get paid, that's important to be sustainable for yourself. And I also find that the people who come to those sessions actually a much more diverse section of the community than the people who walk into a yoga studio. So taking that tangent, would you like to share a little bit about the process of maybe pitching for that grant? Because I'd love to help support other yoga teachers who have an idea, who want to connect with more of their community, but maybe don't know where to start when it comes to applying for council grants or what's involved. So do you want to share a bit of that process?

Claire: Yeah, certainly. Thanks for bringing that up and it's exciting to hear that you do that as well. Yeah. And it was definitely. I share a similar sentiment as to what drew me to doing. To looking for a grant and doing something like that. That's right. I wanted to have a. A more accessible offering that still meant that I was caring for my own energy output basically. And yes, to be able to outreach to a more diverse group. So the. All I did to start with really was I just added myself to the email newsletter of anything possible to do with the local council that I could so I could stay up to date with everything that was happening. And then obviously through those emails heard about upcoming grant possibilities. At the same time as that I also had noticed a gap in what was being offered within the community. So the council has quite a good programme here in Sterling is the municipality that I'm in for anyone in Perth who's listening and interested and they, they offer. I might get the exact details wrong, but it's like a five week block for prenatal people. I think it's free or ridiculously low cost. And they get a prenatal yoga class once a week, a hydrotherapy class once a week and they get access to the gym for that entire five week block which is wonderful that they're offering this and that's throughout. There's various locations, people in the cause. We're in quite a large municipality area wise and quite a diverse one actually. I Think it's one of the most diverse municipalities in Western Australia from a cultural and that kind of perspective. And, and. But what I noticed was they offer this for prenatal and there was nothing for postpartum. And in my opinion, my humble opinion, it's a lot. That's when we need more support is postpartum and that's when it gets harder to access these things. Because if, especially if it's your first pregnancy and you're a bit more flexible, you don't have another child to manage as well, then when you get out the other side, it's a whole different story. So I had approached the council outside of the grant process actually to say, like, I can see this gap here, I'm a willing and available yoga teacher, I'd be happy to help out. And there was not a huge amount of willingness to come to the table. So when the grants came out, I decided, well, I'm going to just do it myself. But it allowed me to be able to speak to in my grant application. I can see that there's a gap here. I think it's great that you're offering this. How about we like bring this into more of a continuity of care model here where we're coming out the other end of the birth kind of portal. So I think that was really helpful in my application in terms of any tips I would say around applying. One big tip I'd say is that it's always helpful if you're applying as a small business owner to be working in conjunction with a community group. So for me, I am hosting my programmes at the local community centre and the community centre has staff that they can call upon from a crash perspective. So working in with community. So we've actually. This is the second grant I've done with them. The first grant they applied for it, but I supported with the. What we wrote in the application. This time I actually applied but shared that I was co creating the event with the programme with them, basically. So, yeah, I think that's usually very helpful in these kind of settings that you are working in with community groups and that there's. You want to be really showing that you're affecting that particular municipality where there that you are looking for the grant from. So, for example, for this one I have a scholarship place each time I run the programme and the stipulation is that only people from within that municipality can apply for the scholarship. Other people can attend the programme, but to get the scholarship they have to be in these particular suburbs. Yeah.

Jo: And the other thing That I found with council classes, which is probably true of a lot of workplaces, but just make sure that you're up to date with your first aid and your insurance and have a qualification. And some people need a professional membership body, you know, membership as well, so all your paperwork, council always need all of that. But another benefit that I've really found doing these types of classes is they will often take care of the marketing for you. So I still share about my classes, but because councils run so many other different community programmes, I guess mine's a bit different because mine's chair yoga, so they'll reach out to their other aged care services and even the mental health services and all of the other community programmes they run where someone who could attend this class might be already a part of. And they take care of the venue as well for me, so that's great too. And I found that the people who are already working at the venue also boost the programme so they'll in person tell people about what's going on. So if you're a solo yoga teacher who's used to doing all of that for yourself, it's really lovely being part of a community network and having all these other people share about your class and feeling like you're actually contributing to your community in another way. So that's another really nice benefit.

Claire: Yeah. Yes. Thanks for pointing that out. So true. Yeah. I've been so grateful for Double Peer House and that's the community centre and their support. So, yeah, definitely, yeah. I must say there was one really interesting thing that brought up for me the kind of. The ongoing journey. I think a lot of us are on about trying to spread the word that yoga is a lot more than just exercise. Because when I apply, applied for the grants, there's different grant streams within the council and I got bounced around. I applied for it through more of the, like, mental health blah, blah, blah kind of side of things, community involvement and relationship building and all that. And then they're like, no, you've applied for the wrong stream. You need to apply for our healthy, active exercise stream. And there was some long conversations around yoga's a little bit more than exercise, exercise and blah, blah. And it really caused a lot of confusion amongst the grants team. So it was very interesting. I think it was hopefully some enlightening conversations for some people. But, yeah, it did highlight for me again, yoga, getting lunch, just as exercise.

Jo: And I guess that also raises a good point. If it's your first time applying for grants and programmes and things, it can be useful to reach out to the people who are organising it. Like, sometimes people are scared to do that, but if you've got questions that might make your application more successful, then absolutely ask. Because sometimes councils have certain allocations of money for different programmes. And I know with my class, like, some of my classes are coming out of the exercise stream and some of them are coming out of aged care funding. So it can be a good way to, you know, if maybe there's not quite enough money to do what you want to do, tap a few different streams with that, or even just make yourself known to the person who's organising the whole thing and, like, get a sense of what your best chance might be. Because I think, yeah, even while you're saying we don't necessarily see yoga as exercise, if you get the exercise funding and more people get to do yoga and discover the other benefits, then that's a win. So.

Claire: Yeah, exactly. Right. And I think, too, look, a lot of the time they have these allocations of funding and they want to use it. Like, that's part of the, you know, important. From the staff who are working in that area. They want this money to go out there into the community. So they. The experiences I've had is that in the application process, they're very open and willing to talk to you and kind of point you in the right direction because, you know, that's. The money's already allocated there, it needs to be used for that. It's not going anywhere else. So, yeah, definitely, if that helps for people who are feeling a bit hesitant about making that call, like, they're going to be a bother, so. Certainly not. That's what those staff are there, that is their job. So, yeah, and everyone I've encountered who.

Jo: Work in that area of the council have been so friendly and, like, nice to deal with. So don't be intimidated.

Claire: Yeah.

Jo: I've got one more thing about council to talk about. If you do have a local business, you might also be able to access some sustainability grants. I noticed that our local council does grants for things like making your business more sustainable, like solar power and things like that. So if you don't want to run accounts council programme, but you have a local business, it could just be worth sussing out what other council money you could use to do the things that maybe are on your list for the future a bit sooner.

Claire: Definitely. Yeah, love that.

Jo: And so I think that also brings us into another evolution in your professional life. I think maybe when we spoke to you last time, you were just thinking about establishing your studio space or in the process of doing it. And just from seeing your social media, it seems like that's a lot more established now, so congratulations.

Claire: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I think I was like, slowly in the process of like, is this. Is it definitely going to be more the space I have here or was I going to look elsewhere and spread myself? Now I've definitely got my programmes at W House, as I mentioned, but the rest of my work, and I've. I'm doing a little bit more in the online space as well too, so that's still a bit of a combo, the online and the in person happening. For me, which I don't know, I feel like I'm one of those people that I need to have a few different avenues of what I'm doing. I'm just maybe a bit crazy.

Jo: So I think that's what financial sustainability looks like. As a yoga teacher, I think you've got to have a few different things going on because chances are one of them's going to go quiet and then you put your energy into the other one. Or if you teach courses and programmes, like, often those end.

Claire: Yeah.

Jo: And then you have a bit of breathing space in between, but also you need some other stuff going on to like.

Claire: Yeah. Paying your bills. Yeah. And definitely for me too, with the space I work in, it tends to go in cycles with me for pregnant. I get like. A lot of pregnant people come, they go in waves. So like I have a lot come at once and they're all at similar stages, I don't sure why. And then they all go up and have their babies and then I'll have a moment of silence and then the next wave comes. It's quite. It's funny how it works like that. Yes. So it is good to be able to, you know, swing between as well.

Jo: And so with that in mind, could you tell us a bit more about your latest training, which is the yoga for home birth?

Claire: Yeah, definitely. So that one I've just launched in the last couple of months. It's been a work in progress for over a year now in terms of the. The evolution of the idea, coming from noticing that more and more home birthing people were coming to my classes and then starting to really identify both, I guess, a need in terms of that there isn't really a clear space that's available for people who are in the home birthing or free birthing or any birth outside the hospital system kind of space, and then that being one part of it. So that kind of community and connection element which of course is the deep part of yoga. And then the other side of it being that when people are making a choice to birth outside the, the key system very, I would say nearly 100% of the time they're in a space of really being aware of the way that the current, unfortunately, birthing system takes away a lot of your autonomy and they're really interested in moving back towards their own autonomy. And again, this is what yoga is all about. But I feel like I can take, take them to a deeper level with that because there's already a, an intention and awareness there to kind of start or deepen into that journey more. So that's why I created the programme specifically for that. And I started with a little pilot programme with a few local, local women who were pregnant and preparing for their home birth. And yet now, now it's available online and I've created it as like an evergreen because it's tricky to be a programme where you kind of start and stop because everyone's somewhere different on their pregnancy journey. So we just cycle through the different modules and it doesn't matter where people come into the programme. That's the, the kind of style there's about. There's eight modules and then some on demand material and ebooks. So there's a bit of in person live stuff or recordings and then practises that people can do at their own pace, in their own time as well.

Jo: And I'd love to get into a bit more of the social justice issues surrounding people birthing in Australia, because you talked about autonomy and anyone from a marginalised community is even more marginalised in sitting settings where personal power and autonomy is challenged. And obviously the more financial resources you have, generally the more choices you have and the more chances you have have someone advocating for you. Because I know people have doulas and maybe have private midwives and all of those things come at a cost. Would you like to just share a bit about that and also just some of the collective actions of Ahimsa, which you kind of mentioned to me earlier last year, that were finally able to resolve a federal issue that have been affecting private midwives and birthing families for the last 15 years?

Claire: Yeah, certainly. I'll try and remember everything. Just asked me a question.

Jo: Sorry, that was a really complicated question.

Claire: I'll try and cover each of the bits, but just remind if I drop off from.

Jo: Maybe we'll just start with the first bit of the question, which is like, what are some of the issues facing people and especially marginalised people already in the birthing space.

Claire: Yeah, definitely. So I think that there's definitely layers, like you were saying. There's. There's intersectionality happening, there's different levels of marginalisation. The first one, if I was to start with it, which is the most broad, is just women or people identifying as birthing, people in general being limited in their capability to be autonomous in birth, the way that the system is set up. So I'll just start briefly with that to throw out a few stats that I think sum up the issue. One in three people who birth in Australia are experiencing birth trauma at the moment. So that's a third of people who go to have a baby come out the other side having been traumatised, which is pretty shocking in the type of country we live in. That's irrespective of any other group that they happen to belong to or anything. Then on top of that, 1 in 10 birthing people experience obstetric violence. So to define obstetric violence, that means violence, either physical or mental harm that's experienced by a person during their perinatal care, by any care provider. So it could be an obstetrician, it could be a midwife, could be a doula, could be a gp, anyone like that who's in a place of, I guess, responsibility for their care. So, yes, there's obviously there's been the New South Wales Birth Trauma Inquiry and there's been Tasmanian one as well. And it's going to be interesting to see whether the other states follow suit at all. But there's definitely a lot more awareness now that these numbers are out there and there's public talk around it, that there's a lot of work to be done in the space. So I think the biggest thing that's interesting is not the best word, but unique to the birth space is that people who are otherwise in quite privileged and powerful positions in society, for example, someone like myself, cisgendered, middle aged, white, Caucasian, Australian female, as soon as you enter the birth system, a lot of those that kind of doesn't matter anymore. And I think then a lot of people who are, say, similar to me in that respect get quite blindsided because they're used to being in this space of privilege and power, whether they realise or not, and all of a sudden, very much not in a deep space of vulnerability and probably not really having needed to during their life. And I'm not saying that other people should have to have needed to do this, but if you know what I'm saying, to really have that awareness of needing to kind of advocate and speak up because they haven't really had to before, so can become blindsided. And then I feel like that's part of what's contributing to this problem, is people don't aware that they need to prepare themselves and they shouldn't have to. But unfortunately that's the way things are at the moment. So that's probably the first layer then to speak to. If we say, for example, people of colour or people from a racialised group, there's so many layers, but we start to look at ones like access to languages other than English services or access to the capability to have that support person with them and those kind of interactions. I will acknowledge that in a lot of hospital settings there are some of these services and there's definitely attached to number of the public hospitals. At least they'll have like social workers and people like that who are there to support. I know at least, and I'm going to speak for WA here, because that's where I'm living at the moment, is we have like the. The indigenous antenatal service and I know speaking to some noongar women firsthand, that they have found that quite supportive to have that. That space where they can specifically go within the hospital system. But what I have heard and seen, and again, I've only been in Western Australia for a couple of years and definitely still in the place, a lot of listening, deep listening and understanding more about the situation, is that a lot of these services support people during the prenatal and then afterwards there's kind of. During the birth, it's not as present, it goes straight back to extreme medicalized, only those people in the room kind of thing. And then afterwards there's a lot of people who kind of fall through the cracks, so to speak. That's generally the understanding and impression that I've received through the people I've spoken to and their experiences. The other one that I would speak to them there probably leads into, to highlight which groups within. Within birthing people that are being really marginalised. Probably best if I then use this, this journey that's been happening with the home birth space to highlight that. Yeah, if that doesn't seem like too much of a tangent.

Jo: Oh, I just want to. Before you get into that, I just wanted to mention something that I'd read as part of some of the sharing about some of these inquiries. How often the trauma and like the PTSD that people experience, not necessarily directly related to a medical emergency, it's more how that emergency was dealt with. So some people might have a birth that didn't go the way they planned and needed a lot of medical intervention, but the people who are listened to and felt like they had a sense of autonomy and were just respected through that process were much less likely to have those post traumatic stress outcomes versus the people who felt like they were bullied or not listened to or just not even had what was happening to them explained to them. That was much more of a contributing factor to how they felt after the birth than the actual medical events themselves.

Rane: Hello, it's Ran here. Just popping in to say thank you to our Patreon supporters. Your continued support really means the world to us and we are incredibly grateful. By joining our Patreon Club for as little as $1 US a month, you can help us cover the cost of editing and producing the podcast. Patreon members also get access to some great bonus content. Claire has generously shared a Yoga Nidra for Pelvic Health Guided Practise this month to join a collection of wonderful contributions from past guests as well as practises from Jo and myself. If Patreon isn't your thing, there are other ways you can support us. Simply sharing this episode on social media, reviewing us on platforms like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or even just reaching out to us to let us know your thoughts and feedback means the world to us. Let's get back to the episode.

Claire: Yes, you're exactly right. And there's actually research out now to show that the two number one, the two number ones, the top two we're all human. The top two factors in having a positive birth experience. And we look at the flip side, the two in three people is number one, continuity of care. So this speaks to what you said, Jo, in terms of it doesn't actually in the end matter how in physical terms traumatic the birth was, whether the person ended up with an emergency C section or perineal tearing, whatever else that they might have experienced, it was more to do with that they had a developed relationship and a trusting relationship with their care provider. And even within that, for example, we can talk about probably the two key people who manage to provide some people with continuity of care. And that is either an obstetrician or a private midwife tends to be the two models where continuity of care does actually happen. And to mention that less than 20% of people in Australia can access continuity of care. Again, another alarm bell there. But the although with a private midwife, that person is I forget the exact percentage more, but it's a lot more percent likely to have a natural birth with the obstetrician, higher chance of C section or those kind of things, but still same outcome in terms of the person perceiving that they had a positive birth experience, which is very interesting. There's other conversations I could go into around that, but, you know, the big thing we want is people to come out the other side not traumatised. Yeah. So. So in that respect, continuity of care is the clear kind of factor there. The other one which goes along with trauma and everything as well, is obviously people feeling safe, so safety. And if you don't have those two, then the chances of the positive birth experience really do decrease. If anyone's interested a bit more to hear more about that and hear people's voices on it, there's an amazing documentary called Birth Time, which I'd highly recommend people go and have a watch of. I'm pretty sure you can access it online to watch, but, yeah, that really dives into that topic a lot more from all different angles, if it's something of interest to people.

Jo: And so what was that issue last year that was resolved regarding private midwives and birthing families?

Claire: Yeah, certainly. So the. It's been going on since 2009, 2010, when a change was made to the insurance for midwives and other perinatal care providers. And what happened was the way the government changed how they were managing their insurance, it took away the availability for private practising midwives to access intrapartum insurance. So, sorry, insurance for the intrapartum period, the intrapartum period being birth. So they were insured for prenatal care. So the pregnancy care and the postpartum care, but not for the. The hours or days when they're for.

Jo: Like, the midwife's primary job.

Claire: Yeah, exactly.

Jo: They're known for at beat.

Claire: Yes. So obviously it put all private midwives and the families that were relying on them into an extremely sticky situation at the time when obviously the government was pointed out. Hang on a sec, what do we do now? Temporary band aid measure was put in place and that was a waiver, basically, for privately practising midwives for this insurance period. But it was told, you know, we're going to. The waiver lasts for 12 to 18 months and then we'll review it. Those people and their birthing families have had that. That kind of waiver and that review come up every 12 to 18 months since that time, up until last year. So. And the biggest challenge being that when people decide that they're going to engage a private practising Midwife, they're usually doing this in the first couple of months of their pregnancy and then they're booking in for their birth in six, seven months time. Yeah. So a lot of the time the government was really leaving it down to the wire. People had people booked out that far and then they didn't even know whether there was going to be a way to be. To be legally covered for what the work that they were doing, which was obviously hugely unsettling for the private practising midwives and their ability to run the business and, you know, feel that they're not going to lose their house or anything else, you know, and then also obviously for the families and the uncertainty about whether they'd be able to maintain that continuity of care. So it's been quite a big issue, but kind of, I guess, because the home birthing space is smaller, probably not as heard about around Australia, unless you were kind of in that space. To give you an idea, I think varying state to state, it's about 1 to 2% of people are birthing outside of the hospital system at the moment, possibly more that are unreported. But, you know, around that it is increasing, interestingly, since COVID But last year, again, one of these cycles had come and it was coming. They were going to do the review and this time they were like, no, we're going to make a decision now. And unfortunately, what happened was there is a. There's a part of the Australian College of Midwifery, Midwifery guidelines, guidelines which talks about different, different levels of risk for pregnant people, low, medium and high risk. And in terms of the College of Midwives, the purpose of this document was for. To make sure that the midwives were managing care appropriately and consulting where they needed to. So, for example, if someone was medium to high risk, there was kind of a recommendation to liaise with a GP or an obstetrician or, you know, more to just check off that everything, you know, whether any further support was needed kind of thing. This was misinterpreted by the people within the government who were proposing the new things. And basically the call, they were saying that the way they were going to be managing it moving forward is that only people who are low risk for birth were going to be allowed to have a private. To have a private practising midwife and to have a home birth. And the reason that might sound, from an outside perspective, pretty straightforward, but it's actually a massive issue of human rights, basically, because the kind of people that were being discriminated against, who would have been ruled out of being able to access this support. Was anyone with went, anyone with a diagnosed mental health issue, anyone who was a person of colour, anyone who was over the age of 35, which is considered a geriatric pregnancy, anyone who was over 40 or had had an IVF pregnancy. And the list goes on. Pretty scary stuff. When I first heard about it, I was. I was utterly horrified. Especially when you stop and consider the list of people I just mentioned, which is only a snapshot, just the first ones that came to mind. These are the main type of people who are wanting to access a home birth because they don't feel supported by the system. So Home Birth Australia, which is kind of the leading body that supports and advocates for home birth in Australia, did a. They did an amazing job, did this big survey and a lot of the midwives were coming back. Again, I'm not great at remembering exact stats, but a lot of midwives, around 80% of their clients were medium to high risk. So again, they were likely going to have their businesses shut down and it was clear to see who the population is who are actually accessing these services. So, yeah, it really was down to a human rights or like a birthing rights kind of situation where people should have the. You know, part of living in a country where we're lucky to like Australia is that supposedly we have rights to make a choice of where we choose to birth, not something that's decided by someone else. And so there was. It was a really. Although it was a really stressful time for a lot of people in that space, it was also amazing to see all the different groups who work in this space really come together into some collective action. And unfortunately in this space there has been a lot of different groups kind of doing similar things but not quite being able to really cohesively come together. And this was really a time when we saw everyone come together cohesively and everyone. I mean, I guess what I was doing over here was getting a group of people together and going to speak to the local government representative and things like that and making people aware of the issue so that, you know, we could amplify the voices and that kind of thing. And definitely my part in it was quite small, but it was really, yeah, one of those moments of really seeing ahimsa in active non harm in action and actually seeing a positive outcome from it, you know, for quite a small percentage of the birthing population, for the government to actually turn around and listen to that and make those changes was, yeah, goosebumps inducing that's amazing.

Jo: Congratulations. That's really awesome. Like, I think sometimes when we're facing really big issues, it's easy to feel like, overwhelmed and like your own voice doesn't have power. So it's really powerful to hear those stories where you can see the difference that individuals coming together have made.

Claire: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think too, to. To just share with people, if you are in one of those spaces where there is an issue such as this, but you feel like, who am I to speak up about it? Definitely for myself, I'm not a. I'm not a midwife, I'm not a doula, I don't. I don't attend births. I support people before and after the birth. And so part of me was hesitant in terms of, you know, I don't know, all the ins and out technicalities of this, but what was very clear and obvious to me was that list of people I said before should not be being discriminated against like this. And in the end there wasn't like a group of midwives and doulas came with me to speak to the local representative, but if I hadn't actually said something and got them together, it wouldn't have happened. And I'm not saying that that was the only thing that like sorted this issue out, but you know what I mean. Your voice is important is what I'm trying to say. And it doesn't matter how little you think you know about the topic, it's more about then amplifying the voices of the people who can't speak up or don't have the platform to speak up about it.

Jo: Amazing. And that brings us into another event that you are recently a part of, which is the mothering during a genocide event, which I saw the online build up to and it sounded amazing. And that's definitely another issue where I think there's a lot of people listening who feel like, like, what can I do? Like, this is so huge and so overwhelming and so heartbreaking. So do you want to share a little bit about the process of co creating that event and what it was like?

Claire: Yeah, for sure. Well, the first thing to share is that Jo and Rani, you actually inadvertently, without realising planted the seed for this event last time you interviewed me and I had to go and look back to remember exactly what you asked me that kind of planted that scene. And I. So I looked it up. So I quote here, you asked me the question, how do you talk to your children about war and genocide? And the. That when you asked me that question was so it was obviously December that year. So October was when the Hamas attack happened and this all blew up. So it was a couple of months in, so obviously earlier in the, in the scheme of it all now, sadly, we never expected it to go this long, obviously. But really what it brought up for me when you asked me that question and I shared about, you know, what me as a humble mum at home does in our own life about it, it really made me start to think about how similar to what we're just talking about now about that, that feeling of helplessness and what can you actually do and how important it was for me to talk to. Not just, you know, we need to be looking at this issue, but hey, if you're a mum at home and you're either feeling the secondary trauma of this or you're seeing it knowing it's horrible, but feeling like I can't do anything about it, so I'm just gonna not do anything about it, that there were so many ways that even, yeah, even if you're a stay at home mom with many kids at home and you're super busy with that, that there are ways and it starts with talking to your children. And so I think you really, both of you were almost like the, yeah, you got me on the bus of talking about that particular element of it more. So thank you. And so over my time of then being involved, I've been involved with the Perth Mums for Palestine group here in, in Perth, which has been amazing. So Mahsa and Heba, who are both Palestinians living in the diaspora, kind of founded it and I've been involved with some of their work and contributing where I can. And I guess being with, involved with that, I kept thinking like, what else? There's something else we could talk about here. And the more and more reflecting on this, what's clearly started to be become a genocide and reflecting upon then the link between that and the genocide that has and it continues to happen on the lands that we are living on as well. And I really felt that it's. For me there was a lot of cross, I guess a lot of similarity to that kind of terrible realisation of those two genocides and our positionality for that, similar to how I feel teaching yoga on this land as well, how we're teaching another culture's tradition, so South Asian tradition on another culture's traditional land as well and the importance of acknowledging that and speaking about it. So yeah, I guess there were those two elements that maybe were this melting pot of okay, how can I bring this into words that will connect with people and voices that people will start to be able to explore this a bit more. And so I had a chat with Massa and Heber and kind of suggested to them I'd thought of this title, Mothering During a Genocide. And we talked about some voices that we might be able to bring together. So they were able to connect with Dr. Samar Jabba, who is a doctor of psychology in Jerusalem, Palestinian living in Jerusalem, and was, I think, the head of psychology for Palestine at one point. And she's been very vocal. She's actually. She was meant to come out to Australia but her visa got rejected, which was, yeah, a whole nother thing. She's written recently, she's written a few books, but she's recently released a book and she was coming on her book launch, but the government weren't.

Jo: Doesn't it?

Claire: Yes. Anyway, I think she's still trying to come out, but we were so grateful to. For her to be able to call in. So we had a bit of a hybrid event where we had her calling in from. From Jerusalem and we had Dr. Esma Kurt, who's in Sydney, who runs some amazing work there through the Al Shifa Project, which are working on supporting the mental health of Muslims in Australia, especially ones who've had to leave their homeland for various reasons. So she. We were raising money for the Al Shepa Project and she spoke to us as well. And then for our indigenous voice, our aboriginal Australian voice, I was so excited and I think I'm still buzzing because this was last Tuesday. I'm still buzzing from it. So I've been doing some work with Louise O'Reilly, who is a Warwa Noongar woman, and she works as a inclusivity and diversity coach. And I've been doing some work with her on, I guess, in the space of inclusive marketing, basically. She's been a bit of a mentor for me in that space. And to be able to then get her to. Well, she accepted to come and speak as well, was just so special. And she is an absolute force to be reckoned with. She's amazing speaker and to be able to meet her in person, because all our work we'd done together was online, was. Was so wonderful. If I am to be a little bit selfish, that was nice for me as well. But, you know, she. She was exactly the voice we needed in the room from that perspective as well. Yeah. So that's kind of how it all came together. So thank you for inadvertently being a part of it.

Jo: Oh, my gosh. I think that was an example of like, you know, you do something and don't even think about it after that and then the. That goes out and you just create. Co created this amazing event. So I'm so honoured to be a tiny part of that.

Claire: Yeah, that's right. You just never know where the tiniest little thing you do can make a difference down the track. That's it.

Jo: And hearing about the wonderful roster of guests you have, I think in some ways answered in action. Another thing that can come up for people who are maybe seeing issues that primarily affect people from a different culture, especially white people seeing like first nations issues or what's happening in Palestine and wonder if it's their issue to speak on. And that process of finding people from those cultures and amplifying their voices is definitely the way to go. But also you don't want to overload someone with emotional labour. And I know prominent people get asked to do a lot of stuff from a lot of different. Like just exposure dollars is not the right thing. But it's like I see so many first nations artists and activists sharing all the time about how often they get approached to do events.

Claire: Yeah.

Jo: Which are pitched as something for their benefit, but they're the ones putting in the work and the emotional work and like they're the ones who are also dealing with the actual issues.

Claire: Yeah.

Jo: So do you want to kind of see. Speak a little bit around the process of like honouring those contributions and going about it in a way that doesn't burden the people who you actually want to help?

Claire: Yes, 100%, thank you. It's such an important point to raise. And actually on the evening I did also speak for a short amount, which I hadn't really wanted to do, but Mahsa and Heber insisted that I did. We wanted to just. They wanted to have a voice of someone in an ally kind of role for the people, for the many people in the room who were in that space about, you know, kind of the stuff we've already talked about. But one of the things I spoke about there that actually the, the amazing Aboriginal, indigenous yoga teachers who were part of the Yarn Circle that I worked with a couple of years ago definitely really taught me. And that's around extractive listening versus reciprocal listening. And you've used different words there to describe that same thing. Where it's really important for us to find these places of deep listening and learning about things that have occurred that whether consciously or not we, we or our culture has contributed to. But there's different ways to go about that. It's never going to be perfect. Most of the time. It's actually probably going to be really messy and you're going to feel like you're fumbling around. I definitely do all the time. I feel like I'm always. Do I need to apologise or ask more about this or, you know, it's messy. But what's really important is being open and honest to ask, you know, what is a fair energy exchange here? How is this feeling for you in terms of. Yeah. Your emotional and physical energy to show up for this? Are there ways that we can make this more straightforward and simple to still allow you to have this platform, but without it being exhausting? So, for example, with. With Louise and Dr. Samar as the speakers, we set that up as a Q and A and we let them know the questions beforehand, checking that they would like that format, of course, but as a way to kind of then not have to then prepare a PowerPoint presentation and really think deeply about having to speak for a full hour and blah, blah, blah. So. And then with the. The event itself, you know, trying to do. I tried as much as I could to do as much of the legwork and the. The setting up of things, the going and checking all the tech and all those background stuff so it didn't have to be all the burden on. On those people. Yeah. So I guess it's just kind of trying to see where you can alleviate the burden wherever possible so that the. The person who is generously sharing of this emotional and physical time is. Is really being allowed to step into that moment rather than all these other facets of it.

Jo: And I guess another thing you could do as well is if there is someone whose work you're really interested in and someone who you do really want to share more about, like, see what they're already doing that you could help with, whether it's financially or just sharing their events or buying their book. Like, it's good to see, like, what people are already doing rather than having to, I don't know, like, this is not what you did, so I hope this isn't coming out that way.

Claire: I see what you're thinking about you and your thing.

Jo: Like, what's this thing that you can amplify?

Claire: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah.

Jo: And so something I've noticed, especially around Palestine, is the power of mum activism. And I like, it sounds condescending, like it sounds like a mummy blogger or like a girl boss or something. And I don't, like, mean it like that because I see many Mum activist groups self identifying in that way. And I see it much more around this issue than other things in the past. But maybe it's more so because I'm at the age where more of my friends are mums and I'm also seeing the collective community of mums like showing up in such a powerful way more so than other kind of identifying groups necessarily. Like I haven't seen as much of it from the yoga world, for example. Do you want to like talk a bit about the power of mum activism and like your view from the inside of that community?

Claire: Yeah, definitely. I love this question. So I think for something like this particular issue that we're seeing. Well, sorry, we're obviously we're kind of half talking about two particular issues. One is the genocide in Gaza and then there's the ongoing genocide, generational intergenerational genocide in Australia. So both of these now with no formal training in this to quantify them as such, but I feel like they've become long term issues. I wouldn't consider either them to be a short term issue now. The, this is just my personal view and beliefs but what I see as the general collective energy of people who are in the mothering space or the nurturing space if they don't identify as a mother but nurturing children is that the energy that goes into that and the, the way of being that comes along with that type of work is a very cyclical and if we want to use some yoga Y kind of words, quite lunar energy as opposed to solar energy. It's less, it's more right brain, left side of body situation creative brain flowing, less contained and structured and rigid. And I'm like, all energy is important but. And it's less like linear and straight and logical and high intense activity. And I think for something like this situation that's actually more of what we need. And to get a bit clearer on that, if that sounded a bit esoteric, there's a cycle happening here where people can uplift each other and you go through this cycle in most elements of being a parent or a mother with young children where you have your really crap days or weeks where the kids aren't sleeping and you're exhausted and you phone your mum friend and you either have a big vent about it all and feel better or they say, hey, I'm coming around, I'm going to come and have a cup of tea with you. I can't fix your, your problems at home because I've also got my own kids, but we're going to Just I'm going to be there for you and you're going to have a moment of rest, for example, and then the next week it's the other way around and you're there cheering them on. Similarly, and this is what I've seen in this space is that it's the same thing. You know, long term activism in the social justice space can be extremely exhausting and we see people burning out in this space all the time. Whereas this kind of energy and way of being that people are in at that stage invites in a little bit more of this cycle of like on some weeks and days I have the energy, I've got the output, I'm there at the march or I'm there outside the politician's office or I'm writing letters or I'm doing these. I'm running this event. Like that was me last week running this event but I've like crashed after that. I knew I would. And so now I'll be a little bit quieter in that space, more just sharing what other people are doing for a little period of time until I'm ready to, you know, come back up the cycle again. So, but knowing then that there's other mums that I'm, I've been connected with through this, who will take their turn in this, you know, and that's something we've been doing in the Perth months for Palestine group is people offering their own skills at different times. So for example, like I ran a mother's circle with a bit of yoga, someone's running a breath work session, someone else is running a Turkish dancing thing to try and keep everyone's mental health going and keep that community connected connection to help help uplift everyone. So I feel that, yeah, that's part of the reason. I think there's just a more sustainable approach there. And then of course I think too, just with something like this happening, Dr. Samar shared with us the other night that there have been 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza over the last couple of years. And I think hearing that huge amount of numbers and when you are going through that so stage of life as well, there's that level of empathy that's just there for you because you know, you can't even fathom what it would be like for something to happen to your child and you're seeing that happen to them or to have your child lose a parent. So I think there's just that kind of element as well that it's a lot of, a lot more stark and raw for you. So you feel A lot more motivated to act. Even if you are uncertain how to act. There's like this just deeper burning like I. But I just have to kind of thing so. Yeah, yeah.

Jo: And I think it's just been so stark seeing all those hospitals being destroyed and if you had have just like we were talking about the prevalence of trauma in a well stocked, well staffed Australian hospital and yeah, it's just like, oh my God.

Claire: Yep. Yeah.

Rane: And I guess I'm just sort of curious like with all this going on, how, how do you sort of keep yourself sort of nurtured and well through all of this.

Claire: Yeah, I mean, certainly have my moments, but trying to allow the moments to happen and to allow those moments to be an indication of. Okay, it's time for a break today from that. I think for me too, having a focus in a focus of wanting to support the people in Gaza, support indigenous people here, that kind of thing, counterbalanced by the work and support I do in the home birth space. I think that helps me because there's, there's different challenges and there's different joys. So I think it allows me to zoom in and out sometimes and get different perspectives on things. But definitely something that, you know, it's a journey for us all. And something I keep cycling back to over different layers of cycling is remembering that all suffering is valid and that, yeah, it's perspective, but it's all valid and remembering that for myself as well. You know, I have my own days with, with my own kids where I'm like, really? I just want to quit this parenting gig. And then I have those moments where I've yelled at the kids and being like, just eat your food people and guys, I don't have any food. You know, that kind of moment which you come back and you repair afterwards. But yeah, I think it's just the ongoing process of ahimsa. And something I'm really lucky with at the moment is that my children, even my three and a half year old, we talk about ahimsa quite often. It's part of I guess our house rules, so to speak, that we come back to and she's starting to understand it now. We've been having a little bit cute, little bit. Oh, I think a girl's very different to raising a boy. And we've been having her little incidents lately, have been around being a bit mean to some of her friends at daycare where she's not letting them be her best friend, but bringing that into the kind of a himsa and that we can everyone could be your best friend. Best friend. And yeah, so those moments do bring a little bit more of a light heartedness to it at times. Even though it seems really serious for her. That does. Yeah. Allow me to come up for air.

Jo: I think I remember Giovanna Heyman saying something a little bit similar to this because, you know, like another activist taking on so many big causes, how if you are feeling really overwhelmed by the whole world, like zoom right in and see what you can do really close to home, whether it's helping someone in your family or someone in your community or maybe someone affected by a bigger global issue within your community. And like, at least then you can do something that feels like it has an impact that will help that is close to home rather than trying to heal the whole world. It's like, what can I do here and now that will, you know, be that little drop in the ocean or that little ripple that goes out.

Claire: Yeah, that's right. And I think if I go back to the event we have this week and you know, question, did we, did we make. Make a huge impact on the whole world and the Gaza situation by doing that event? Very much no. Very much likely, no. Maybe, maybe there's amazing little drops, like what happened with you even starting that process. That is the next ripple. But that aside, there were Palestinian women in the room who came up to me afterwards and just expressed their deepest gratitude for their voice being heard, for people actually showing up and showing that they care. And a couple of these women have recently come from Gaza. And if that's the only people that we affected, that's, that's awesome. You know, if we only raised enough money to support one Muslim woman through Al Shifa, it was still something and it's still going to affect someone's life. So, yeah, I think, yes, definitely, we can, we can make small steps and they all add up.

Rane: I think that's really powerful.

Claire: Yeah, yeah.

Rane: And I guess we've made it to our last question and I guess normally we ask, you know, if you could summarise everything that you do and distil it down to one core essence. I'm just wondering, has, has that changed in the last 18 months? And if so, what, what might that one thing be?

Claire: Yeah, well, I can't remember what I said 80 months ago. I'm not sure if you two can remember, could I? Only if you're happy with this, take a slight tweak on it and share the wonderful core essence that I got from mothering during a genocide, which I think sums up A lot of social justice work and the amplifying of oppressed voices because I've been sitting with from that event and all the listening I did during that event to the speakers. What are the simple key messages out of that? And the big one for me that came out of it was start with a willingness to learn.

Jo: Beautiful. Yeah. That's so powerful.

Claire: Not my words. Dr. Samar's words.

Rane: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much.

Jo: Yeah, yeah. So great to talk to you again.

Claire: Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me on. I'm always just so grateful for the work you are both doing, the voices you're sharing and, yeah, everything else you do in your individual work. But yes, the FLO Artist podcast is such an important voice in the Australian yoga world. So thank you. Thank you.

Jo: I was feeling very like I should be doing more while I was listening to the things that you do, so that's lovely. Thank you. And I. I could do more.

Claire: No, but look, and I think that. I think that's the important thing to finish with too, is that I don't know. And I worry about this sometimes when I share what I'm doing is that everyone shouldn't feel they have to do exactly what I did or do as much as I have done. Not that I'm trying to talk up that I do a lot because I constantly feel like I need to to do more as well. But I think we can continue to be in that place no matter how much we do. So I think it's important to just come back to when you're feeling like, what can I do is just do the next right thing can be the tiny conversation you have with someone or give your child a hug, whatever it is, but just do that one little thing. Doesn't have to be massive.

Rane: Beautiful.

Claire: Beautiful.

Rane: Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Claire. We've included the links for her website and course in the show notes. For more content and updates, you can find me on Instagram as @ranelovesyoga and Jo can be found at @gardenofyoga. We love connecting with our listeners, so don't hesitate to reach out and share your thoughts. We'd like to express our gratitude to ghostsoul for generously granting us permission to use their track Baby Robots as our theme song. Be sure to check out gosooul.bandcamp.com to discover more of their incredible music. Once again, thank you so much for spending your precious time with us. We really appreciate you more than words can express. He aroha nui Maua Kia Kotou Kautoa Sending you all big, big love.